Newly introduced legislation in North Carolina would double the amount of photovoltaics that the state’s utilities have to add into their energy mix under the state’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS) law. The legislation has broad support from both the state House and Senate.

House Bill 495 was introduced on Monday (March 28). Under the bill, the amount of solar power that utilities in the state, like Duke Energy and Progress Energy, have to purchase for retail customers would double, from 0.2 percent of their electric portfolio to 0.4 percent of their portfolio.

“We have very strong bipartisan supporters,” said Julie Robinson, director of communications and government affairs with the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA). The legislation may also have the support of Gov. Beverly Purdue (D), but she has not commented on the legislation yet. “She has been a strong proponent of the solar industry and the thousands of jobs created by the industry across North Carolina.”

The legislation would create a total of 4,000 new solar energy jobs in the state by 2015, bringing the total number of solar jobs in the state to 6,000.

The legislation was proposed to account for the 50 percent price drop in the cost of solar in North Carolina since the original REPS legislation passed in 2007, Robinson said. She said the increased percentage maintains the cost cap established in the original legislation.

The REPS bill, Senate Bill 3 (2007), requires that 12.5 percent of utilities’ retail electric sales come from renewable sources and energy efficiency projects by 2021.

“Our state’s utilities have well exceeded the early requirements for solar under the REPS, which means an extremely limited market for NC’s solar businesses through at least 2015,” according to a NCSEA press release.

Under the REPS bill’s solar carve out, utilities will source between 125 megawatts to 180 MWs from photovoltaics by 2018, Robinson said.

“Right now, we’ve got about 60 megawatts installed or close to that,” she said, adding that some larger arrays are under construction right now.

While solar will play a role in North Carolina’s renewable energy future, it will be part of a mix of renewable energy sources.

“Solar has really taken off over the last few years,” Robinson said. But construction also is underway on a major—300 MWs—wind farm in the state. There’s also the potential for enormous offshore wind and biomass generation from woody mass as well as poultry and swine waste, according to Robinson.

Pictured: An installation at the North Carolina Zoo, courtesy of Carolina Solar Energy.